100 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol. IX 



in the latter's collection, as well as all he could be sure of that 

 Fischer, Mannerheim and Eschscholtz had described. Leconte 

 personally never saw the types of the great Russian collectors, 

 and our knowledge of them is largely fide Motschulsky and Baron 

 Chaudoir, who made many comparisons, including the Eschscholtz 

 types, for a number of years. In 1857 Leconte added up the 

 known species of our Pacific coast as 540. 



If the career of Mannerheim be the most important in Russian 

 history, his work marked throughout with Teutonic method, care 

 and accuracy, that of Motschulsky is the most intensely Russian. 

 While others acquired collections by purchase, he got his by 

 personal work in the field. No province of the Russian Empire 

 was unvisited. No task of military service was too exacting to 

 deprive him of a few hours daily collecting. Just as Dejean dis- 

 mounted on the field of Waterloo to pick up a strange beetle so 

 did Motschulsky ; he never ceased for an hoiur to be a Coleopterist. 

 He had all the failings of the miUtary caste. He was arbitrary, 

 often overbearing, never to be contradicted. A volume could 

 easily be written on his personality. In his later years he gained 

 much recognition from his Imperial master and was given many 

 honorary, even sinecure, details, in which his beetle work could 

 remain paramount. 



When Motschulsky died, he left his collection to the Society 

 of Naturalists of Moscow. Few types survive. Neglect cannot 

 be wholly charged for this loss. Entomological kleptomania is a 

 peculiar phase of human nature. It is mainly confined to men 

 who would under no circumstances take any sum of money or any 

 thing else usually esteemed valuable, but who cannot resist the 

 temptation to take a specimen lacking in their own collection. A 

 friend's collection is occasionally sacred, a public collection never. 

 One of the best known lepidopterists once made an open con- 

 fession that if he wanted his neighbor's butterfly he would try to 

 buy it or get it by exchange. Failing these he would steal it if he 

 ever got the chance. Dr. Geo. H. Horn told a story of a visitor, 

 a well known collector and man of wealth. A year later this 

 man mailed to the Doctor six beetle types. He had spent the 

 evening alone in the Doctor's rooms, but he had the eventual 

 conscience. "The joke of it is," added the Doctor, "I never 



